I can see it. Unfortunately, Hussein Deathcare™ doesn't cover 'cigarettes, whiskey & wild, wild women."
Posted on 07/21/2009 8:39:36 PM PDT by Libloather
Funeral date set for oldest man
Page last updated at 18:44 GMT, Tuesday, 21 July 2009 19:44 UK
A public funeral with military honours will be held for Henry Allingham, who was the world's oldest man before his death at the weekend at the age of 113.
Mr Allingham, one of the last surviving World War I servicemen, died at a care home for blind ex-service personnel in Ovingdean, near Brighton, on Saturday.
He joined the Royal Naval Air Service in 1915, later transferring to the RAF.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said his funeral would take place at St Nicholas Church in Brighton on 30 July.
Mr Allingham, whose life spanned three centuries, was the last survivor of the Battle of Jutland.
An MoD spokesman said space within the church would be limited for members of the public wishing to pay their respects.
'Extremely unique'
He explained: "The funeral will be attended by Mr Allingham's family, who will be travelling from America for the service, and by senior representatives of HM Government and the Armed Forces.
"The Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force in particular will be represented, with regard to Mr Allingham's service record."
**SNIP**
He was described by his friend and chaperone, Dennis Goodwin, as one of an "extremely unique and special generation of people".
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
I can see it. Unfortunately, Hussein Deathcare™ doesn't cover 'cigarettes, whiskey & wild, wild women."
The bad news is that Bill Clinton will probably live forever......
Looks like I may live to be a very old man.
Logic police here.... Unique means "the only one". So there can be no grades or modifiers to "the only one".
That being said, I heartily approve of his lifestyle, and follow that formula myself. "One half of my money, I spent on wimmen and whiskey, the other half, I wasted."
/johnny
HENRY WILLIAM ALLINGHAM - WORLD'S OLDEST MAN
6-6-1896 — 18-7-2009
HENRY Allingham, the last Royal Air Force and British naval veteran of World War I — and for the last month of his life recognised by Guinness World Records as the oldest man in the world — has died at a nursing home in Brighton, England. He was 113.
In 1916, he maintained naval aircraft during the Battle of Jutland, the conflict's greatest sea battle, and the following year he was transferred to the western front in time for the last Ypres offensive.
Allingham was born in Clapton, East London, a year before Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee of 1897 and three years before the Boer War; the Klondike gold rush was just starting; and General Kitchener was campaigning in the Sudan.
His father, an ironmonger, died of tuberculosis when Allingham was 14 months old. He left school to train as a surgical-instrument maker, but soon moved on to learn to make car bodies. Aged 18 when World War I began, he wanted to volunteer for the army as a dispatch rider; instead, at the request of his ailing mother, he stayed at home until her death in 1915.
He was captivated by the sight of an aircraft circling overhead, and applied to join the Royal Naval Air Service, and in September 1915 qualified as an air mechanic. Posted to the naval air station at Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, he helped maintain a wide range of fragile aircraft, and flew in some.
In May 1916, he was posted to the armed trawler Kingfisher to help maintain its single seaplane. The vessel was attached to the British Grand Fleet at the end of the month, when the great naval clash finally came about. The German High Seas Fleet had hoped to destroy a section of the British fleet.
The sprawling and confused engagement was named the Battle of the Skagerrak by the Germans. They won the first day's action on May 31 when the British lost three lightly armoured battle cruisers to the Germans' one. The British claimed victory, in what they christened the Battle of Jutland, on June 1 when the two main bodies of battleships fought each other. Kingfisher was involved in shadowing the German heavy ships.
Tactically it was a German victory. The British Grand Fleet lost 111,000 tonnes of warships, and the German High Seas Fleet was reduced by 62,000 tonnes. But strategically the British won because their surviving ships were significantly less damaged. The British fleet was ready for duty 24 hours after the battle; the Germans never came out in strength again. As air activity at sea declined in 1917, many RNAS units were transferred to the western front in France.
In June, Air Mechanic First Class Allingham was assigned to No. 12 Squadron, training other transferred RNAS units. After five months, he was posted to a depot at the port of Dunkirk on France's border with Belgium, where he experienced aerial bombing and shelling from land and sea as his unit struggled to repair and recover damaged aircraft. Casualties were high when the airmen were covering the Third Battle of Ypres or Passchendaele in the latter part of 1917, frequently taking refuge in shell holes.
Going forward at night to salvage parts of downed aircraft left him with a frightening memory of the war. "I fell into a shell hole. It was full of arms, legs, ears, dead rats — a lot of dead, rotten flesh. I was up to my armpits in water. I can't describe the smell of flesh and mud mixed up together. I turned to my left … and I was able to lift myself out of the water. I lay there in the dark, not daring to move, cold and with my uniform stinking. I was frightened. I was scared. I was so relieved when it finally got light and I could move."
On April 1, 1918, Allingham and his comrades swapped their naval uniforms for the grey-blue kit of the brand new Royal Air Force, product of the amalgamation of the RNAS and the army's Royal Flying Corps.
Allingham was sounded out about taking an RAF commission after the war, but decided instead to marry his sweetheart, Dorothy, whom he had met in Great Yarmouth in 1915. Their marriage in 1918 lasted more than half a century until her death in 1970; they had two daughters who also died before him.
He was formally discharged from the RAF in April 1919. Then he joined the Ford motor company, and later Rolls-Royce, working as a coachbuilder. Already too old for active service when World War II began in 1939, Allingham worked as a mechanic, including "degaussing", helping to protect ships against magnetic mines.
He was admitted to the French Legion of Honour in 2003, and awarded a special medal and the freedom of the French town of Saint Omer.
He only moved into a care home in 2005. Allingham's death leaves only two British World War I veterans still living — Henry Patch, who is 111, and Claude Choules, 108, who lives in Perth. Choules, like Allingham, fought at the Battle of Jutland.
Allingham's memoir, Kitchener's Last Volunteer, was written with Dennis Goodwin and published last year.
He is survived by six grandchildren, 16 great-grandchildren, 21 great-great-grandchildren, and one great-great-great-grandchild.
http://www.theage.com.au/world/straddling-three-centuries-20090721-ds13.html
Quoting Tom T. Hall....
“Younger women, older whiskey, faster horses...more moneyyyyy.”
Insurance? We don’t need no stinkin’ insurance. :)
I’ll go for the whiskey, but I’m a straight female who doesn’t smoke. And I’m not a slut.
Oh well. Rest in peace you naughty boy.
/johnny
That's what we fight for, ma'am. So you ladies can serve your tea on time. With no fuss.
'Single men in barriks don't grow into plaster saints'. Kipling.
/johnny
Ready, two!
I'm not dead - yet.
Giving up smoking, women and whiskey won’t make you live longer...it will just seem like it.
Well, I did say I was all right with the whiskey. And I don’t want other people to stop smoking. :)
Tea? Blech!
Heehehehe.
Henry Allingham -- the world's oldest man and oldest World War I veteran -- celebrates his 113th birthday at HMS President at London's St Katherine`s Dock in June 2009. Allingham -- who put his longevity down to "cigarettes, whisky and wild, wild women" -- has died at the age of 113.
World War I veteran Henry Allingham -- seen here celebrating his 113th birthday on June 6 --
Henry Allingham smiles during his 113th birthday party at HMS President, in London in this June 6, 2009
Henry Allingham smiles during his 113th birthday party at HMS President, in London in this June 6, 2009
I smoke cigars instead of cigerettes. I have done the wild women and drinking though. Will I be okay?
/johnny
Teef.
It’s a shame that the vast majority of people die within six months of their birthday........
Have ever considered putting the lime in the coconut and shaking it all around? (just to be sure)
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